Standard Coverage

Title insurance from Phillips County Title Company will deliver you peace of mind. It takes most of the risk out of buying real property when you don’t know the complete legal history. Over the years, your “new to you” property may have changed hands many times through sale, inheritance, foreclosure, or bankruptcy. Each transfer is a chance for an error in title to occur. If an error did occur, and has never been corrected, it puts your title at risk. You could lose your property and the money you have invested into it. Even if you successfully defend your rights of ownership, the cost in time and legal fees could be more than the value of the property.

Among the many risks against which title insurance protects you are:

• Ownership – another party claims ownership rights to a property, confusion from similarity of names
• Public Record Error – a document is not properly signed or recorded
• Forgery, Fraud, and/or Duress – another party has ownership rights in your property due to forgery or   false impersonation
• Undisclosed Heirs – an unknown heir claims ownership to the property
• Liens – a creditor of the previous owner(s) attempts to enforce a lien
• Unmarketable Title – a defect in the title that makes it difficult to convey to another party
• Right of Legal Access – an owner does not have legal access to his/her property
• Signatures of minors or mentally incompetent persons
• Invalid divorces, Misrepresentation or marital status
• Unpaid taxes
• Wills not probated

A low, one-time premium is all you pay to obtain the protections and peace of mind of an American Title & Escrow policy. There is never an additional cost for as long as ownership remains in your name or that of your heirs. The policy is issued in an amount equal to the purchase price you pay. As always, the greater the coverage given, the higher the premium will be.

Note: The above is a summary of the benefits available under a Phillips County Title Company policy. Please refer to the policy itself to determine the exact benefits and the exclusions from coverage.

Standard Coverage
Extended Coverage
Limited Coverage Junior Loan

At Phillips County Title Company, we can cover lenders as well as home owners. The lender’s or mortgagee policy protects the lender for the amount of their loan. If the mortgage company loans you $100,000 on your house, then their policy will be for that amount only, $100,000. This type of policy is called the ALTA policy and is a standard policy approved by the American Land Title Association. It is issued to banks and other institutional lenders. In addition to covering the lender for the losses included in the owner’s policy, the lender’s policy includes coverage for any losses that the lender would incur if another creditor were first in line. If, for example, you were to take out a second mortgage and had managed to keep this second loan hidden while refinancing your first mortgage, the second mortgage would take first place in the event of a foreclosure action. The lender’s title insurance policy would cover the mortgagee of the first loan if this were to occur.

• Lot Book Guarantee
• Litigation Guarantee
• Trustee’s Sale Guarantee
• Property Search Guarantee
• Judgment and Tax Lien Guarantee